Business Success

January 28, 2013

"If I can stop one
heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching,
or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
~ Emily Dickinson

I've had the pleasure of
helping Jonathan Keyser edit his upcoming book on how he converted from a
self-centered, egotistical life of seeking business success, to a life of selfless
service.

The book inspired me to
search for a quote that best described Jonathan's heart and soul. That's the
quote you see up there from Emily Dickinson.

It sure doesn't look
like a quote that has anything to do with business.

Which is why it is
perfect, because Jonathan and his team of like-minded, service-obsessed commercial
real estate consultants do not do business in a normal way.

For example, let's take
a look at their operating principles that the team co-authored for itself. And
before you allow yourself to be pleasantly stunned by these, what's even more
impressive to me is how his team continuously imprints these by reading them
aloud at meetings and reporting back to each other about how they are being
lived out there in the real world:

1. We SERVE our clients, partners, and each other fully, selflessly
and completely and only involve ourselves in projects, activities and
conversations that can truly add value to another individual. We are known by one
word….SERVICE…and we live the statement: “It is not about me.”

2. We outwork our competition and win as a result. We work
relentlessly, tirelessly, and passionately towards our cause and do not allow
ourselves to be distracted, discouraged, or deterred from our mission by
ANYTHING, no matter how enticing it may appear.

3. We encourage bold action and are not afraid of making a mistake.
We never punish mistakes, but rather embrace them because to fear mistakes
makes a person timid, and keeps them out of bold, fearless, massive action
which is precisely where value is created.

4. We always do our best, and produce more than our clients request
or expect every single time. We provide the highest quality service, materials,
and deliverables to our clients and partners, and nothing is ever done
half-ass. Everything is done to the very best of our potential.

5. We expect to win every single time. Period. We do this because we
think and act as we truly are…the best in the business. No one delivers greater
service or quality representation than our team. We are the BEST and we honor
ourselves by being and doing our best.

6. We are one team, and each person plays an integral role. Together
we are more successful than we would be on our own, and we honor the importance
of everyone’s contribution. We each serve a critical team function, and no team
member is superior to another.

7. We give first, fully and exuberantly, knowing that if we focus on
giving and truly seeking opportunities to help others in real, tangible ways,
then we experience true joy and fulfillment in our own lives, and as a side
benefit, experience resounding success as well.

8. We always follow through with the commitments we make…always.
People can rely on us because we do what we say we will do, and when we see
that we cannot, we quickly clean it up. We are our word, and as a result, what
we speak into existence actually occurs for us.

9. We have fun with what we do, and with the members of the team.
This is a mission we are thrilled to be a part of, and we won’t take on a
client unless it will be fun for everyone. Nothing is worth sacrificing our
happiness over, and so we are lighthearted and playful in all we do.

10. We invest in our own self-improvement, always striving for greater
awareness of ourselves and our creator, for we know that as we align with our
true identity and remain focused on our purpose that the power within us will
manifest and create our highest potential.

11. We are a family, and always protect and serve each other. In love,
we hold each other accountable through authentic, honest, and kind discussion.
We are a tight knit brotherhood, and we love and care for each member of the
team at all times because they are family.

12. We are 100% coachable. We do not resist feedback, we are never
defensive, and we look deep within ourselves to find where feedback could be
even partially true. We find great value in the perspective of others and are
fully committed to the consensus of the team.

13. We are 100% present in all that we do. We commit all of our mental
energy to what we’re creating and do not allow ourselves to be distracted by
Anything (technology, other people, or our own thoughts). We are fully present,
and thus maximize every action and interaction.

14. We are disruptive, we embrace change, and we are forward thinking
in all that we do. We continuously explore and integrate new tools and
innovations, to maximize personal responsiveness & efficiency, and provide
best-in-class service to each and every client.

15. We are strong, healthy and fit. We value and respect our bodies
with regular exercise and proper nutrition, knowing it increases productivity,
confidence and well being. We care for ourselves, and as a result, discipline
flows into every aspect of our lives.

Jonathan Keyser has not
created some kind of blue sky ideal future scene for his team and him to live
toward. I know the man (he and I share the same transformational unstoppable
coach). Keyser's principles are a description of how he lives NOW. He's
performed this way for quite some time, in fact, and is now devoted to teaching
his team, and even beyond his team..... (when his book comes out) the entire
world the profitable results of living for service.

I received a quote from
Brian Johnson this week that made me think of Jonathan and the company they
call Keyser:

“A path is only a path, and there is no
affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart
tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many
times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does
this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no
use.”~ Carlos Castaneda

The Business Jounal had
a great little article on Keyser that you will want to read, here.

August 01, 2012

People think, "Oh, it's all a mind game and how clever you are, whether you can outwit the market."

That's not really true.

It's your own level of energy and service and strength that works. The body often goes first and leads the mind; and people often increase their wealth when they increase their physical activity.

They may be training for an Iron Man or they start working out or they start doing Yoga or they start running, or dancing or doing something. They find that the brain wakes up to the degree that the body does. So it's so important to have a physical aspect.

A lot of people would think, "Well wait a minute that physical goal of yours, wouldn't that take a lot of time when you should be focusing on making money. Wouldn't that take time away?"

But actually it doesn't.

Actually it produces more energy.

It produces a greater ability to focus, more mental alertness and greater well being--a greater sense of good move and good spirits and lively spirits that happen after you have gone for a good run or a swim or played a game of basketball. Your mind is actually in better shape to serve and create the relationships you want that will lead you to make money.

So when I want to make the shift from worrying, fearing, being paranoid, doubtful---------I want to make that shift up to warrior and I want to go to war (the spirit of going to war), and I want to look at the thoughts that are making me worry. Those are just thoughts (that's all those are) and I want to take a very deep breath, do what I need to do. Hit the punching bag, run around the block, jump in the pool and get right out, breathe deeply, sing a song, and then start brand new and say "I'm going to use my imagination now to brainstorm my next actions for creating prosperity and I want to clean off my whiteboard (one of my whiteboards anyway) and start throwing ideas up there--next action, next action, next action and then circling one and then doing it."

And that's the warrior mindset and that's what really produces wealth as opposed to dropping down to my lowest mood, believing all my thoughts and worrying. Wealth worrier? No. How about wealth warrior instead?

I want to rise up, I want to go to war, I want to create prosperity.

I want to serve people.

* * * * * * * * *

A 2nd Evening of Stories and Songs Benefit Concert for...Brittany Schramm (Please read her story below)

Join us for an entertaining evening of hilarious, inspiring, insightful stories and songs to go with them that will raise your spirits and leave you feeling like you have just returned from a long, stress-free vacation!Steve Chandler and Andrew McKee will take you on an entertaining journey up the ladder of human consciousness (and if you don't know what this is yet, you have to attend!)

Here's what people said about the 1st Evening of Stories and Songs...

"The music is still running through our minds... and I could hardly sleep for all that really uplifting energy we shared!"

- Marian Sears, Fountain Hills, AZ

"I had the absolute privilege of flying out to Phoenix to see Steve Chandler and Andrew McKee perform their evening of Songs and Stories. From the moment it started, I was completely immersed in this magical musical journey they had prepared for us. The music was absolutely superb. I had the chills, tears streaming down my face, and laughter in abundance. I was so touched by the absolute authenticity of these master performers. They hold nothing back. Their love of life infuses the music with so much energy- it's absolutely contagious! I walked out overflowing with joy. Don't miss these guys, they sing and play straight from the soul."

- Lisa Peake

All in support of Brittany Schramm and her family. Concert Location:

Heritage Academy32 South Center StreetMesa, AZ 85210

Recommended $20 donation but you may contribute as much as you wish. Any donation gets you a seat, but please understand and support the wonderful cause. If you would like to donate to the Silent Auction please contact Lynanne Cottle at bljbsl@yahoo.com or call 480-577-5677.

Seating is limited. If paying at the door, please email Andrew atamckee1711@gmail.com for seat reservations.

(Please note that the PayPal account will show Andrew McKee amckee1711@gmail.com)

THANK YOU!

Brittany's Story

Brittany Schramm was a fun-loving, athletic wife and mother of 2 young children. On April 7th, 2012 she and her husband Jeff decided to head out on their mountain bikes and test out the trails in the popular Red Mountain area near their Mesa home. The day was beautiful and the ride was fun, until tragedy struck. Brittany hit a rock and was launched over her handlebars. She landed on her head cracking both her helmet and 4 bones in her back and neck, instantly paralyzing her from the chest down. She was air-lifted to Scottsdale Osborn hospital where she endured 7 hours of surgery to repair the damage to her spine. Although the surgery was successful, Brittany's spinal cord remained badly bruised. After several days in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit, Brittany was moved to Barrows Neurological Institute to begin her long journey of physical therapy.

Brittany spent 7 weeks at Barrow's learning how to sit-up, roll-over, manage herself in a wheelchair, and generally learn how to handle her now paralyzed body. The days were long, and the therapy was often grueling, but Brittany remained strong and determined to learn as much as she could.

Brittany is now home with her family and is adjusting to life as a paraplegic. She is beginning to regain feeling in lower portions of her body and is optimistic that she will walk again. She is now faced with a new challenge. Her insurance plan offers no provisions for outpatient physical therapy, which means that for Brittany to continue therapy she will have to pay cash. Brittany is determined to walk again, with or without professional therapy, but is hopeful that with the proceeds from this concert she will be able to afford some type of therapy. She extends her love and gratitude for the donations already offered and the many prayers in her behalf.

February 17, 2011

Bruce Lee identified the warrior as an average person with laser focus.

But what if the average person has no focus, laser-like or otherwise?

We average people are usually too diffuse to connect with anything. We scatter our forces. We try to please. We unconsciously change ourselves every day while desperately trying not to. We try to cling to the foolish consistency known as a permanent personality, but it never holds. One foul mood sweeps in and no one recognizes us.

Or a buoyant mood overcomes us and people get their hopes up. Then the mood fades and we become someone else again.

Who are we? Buoyant or foul-tempered? We fight to regain control and come in somewhere in the middle. We don't want people to be afraid of us, but neither do we want them to expect too much. All our personalities, therefore, are crafted from the most hair-raising mediocrity. It's the middle way. Team Mediocre.

All the energy it takes to try to hold this mediocre personality-this one consistent person-together could have been used to create something.

But who knew? I mean really, when you were growing up, who told you that?

You had a hard enough time dealing with Santa not being real. How were you to handle yourself being a total fabrication?

* * * * * * *

How to keep your soul alive

"To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying 'Amen' to what the world tells you to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive."~ Robert Louis Stevenson

When I accept the role of time warrior, I will seek first to keep my soul alive. Instead of what most people do. They try to keep their fake identity alive.

As warrior (not worrier) I will wake up and create my day based on how I prefer to serve this world. And I can do this in any format, including washing dishes at the hotel, if I do it with enough love, energy and humor.

People who do "lowly" jobs with love and energy find themselves being promoted and offered other "better" jobs very quickly. Because they understand what Robert Frost meant when he said "The way out is through."

Other people "stuck" in "lowly jobs" where they imagine they are being unjustly "nickled and dimed" are always looking for a way out. Never seeing that the way out is through.

A warrior does not "get out."

A warrior goes through.

Here's an early book review from Jay Adams:

"Steve Chandler has outdone himself. In his latest book, Time Warrior, he turns the concept of time management on its head. He actually transcends the concept."

"Chandler demonstrates that the very notion of time efficiency is outdated and unworkable. For me this book is the best of combinations: a stimulating ground breaker, an entirely fun exploration and an energizing mind shift. Time Warrior is a gem – a book whose time has come."

The subtitle of the book is, How to defeat procrastination, people-pleasing, self-doubt, over-commitment, broken promises and chaos.

My book was written to give you immediate access to NON-LINEAR time management....instead of having you struggle with old-school systems that leave you feeling overwhelmed with unfinished business every day.

July 28, 2010

In a book I wrote called The Ten Commitments I focused on the great visionary architect and scientist Buckminster Fuller. He defined synergy as "the behavior of whole systems, unpredicted by knowledge of the component parts."

Fuller uses the example of two metals combining to be stronger than the sum total of each metal. Why are they stronger? Because of the interaction of their molecules when they are put together.

Buckminster Fuller proved in his work that most people do not know it is possible to get more out of a system than you put into it. To get more than you pay for.

At first, when I was reading about Fuller's life I thought, "But that's architecture and design theory….does it really apply to a human life? Surely the same laws don't apply. This is flesh and blood and emotions, not metal."

But, that's the secret beauty of Buckminster Fuller's life. He applied these principles to his own life, too. And what a gift to us that he did. Because Fuller's life was not easy. Not until he applied the synergy.

In 1922, Buckminster Fuller's first child died in his arms of pneumonia just a month before her fourth birthday, after having survived both infantile paralysis and spinal meningitis. Fuller felt he was personally to blame for her death, which he thought could have been prevented if he had provided adequate housing and a properly designed environment. Imagine the pain of thinking that.

Then, in 1927, he lost a building company, which he had founded with his father-in-law, to bankruptcy. Couple that with personal bankruptcy the same year, and then add the birth of a new daughter. The pressure was unbearable. He stood on the edge of Lake Michigan and contemplated suicide.

The birth of his new daughter had pushed him to the edge of the water. He had to make a decision. It had to either be suicide or complete personal reinvention. There was no middle ground for him. His old chaotic way of life would only endanger his new child.

"I had really been through a great deal," said Fuller. "But I had gone into Harvard with high honors in physics. I had very rich boyhood experience with boats. In the Navy, I had looked into electronics, the chemistries and navigation. I had papers to command unlimited tonnage on the ocean. I could fly. But I had kept pushing things, trying them out. And it always seemed to come to a dead end. I decided I'd better call myself to account, with this new child to care for. Or get myself out of the way, because I was a mess."

"At the age of 32 I decided to reorganize my effectiveness to recapture the capabilities we were born with," he said. "This is really where I started. I was not called an architect. I was not called anything. I was simply faced with the problem of organizing myself and really starting to use me. I had to educate myself in a great many ways to pursue such a course. But I found it's actually possible for an individual to make first moves, and that these will incite various others."

Fuller's enormous success thereafter was based on his many "first moves." He found that when he created a plan, and then made a series of first moves, he was creating and producing his life with action. Most people wait for the first moves to happen to them. They let the world around them make the first moves and then they respond, living a life of second moves, all in response to others. They never realize the mind shift that is available to them.

Fuller also saw that the breakthrough would be to make a commitment to "reorganize" himself, all those individual parts of himself that had not yet been working in synergy, but rather pulling in all different directions. It took working in synergy, with all of his commitments firing at once, to recapture the capabilities he was born with.

Fuller wasn't the first person to become enlightened to the possibility of one's work, when done right, being a perfect model for a whole life done right. Ludwig van Beethoven once said, "He who understands my music will not be tormented by the ordinary difficulties of life."

When chaos escapes into a higher order there is synergy. This not only happens in science and physics, it happens in our own chaotic lives. It can happen in our own minds when we shift from passivity to a first move. That shift is everything.

* * * * * * *

Alastair Campbell has written a book called THE MARKETING LAUNCHPAD (www.idealmarketingcompany.com) to guide people through the process of marketing their business.

Most people I coach in small businesses believe they don't know "how to" do certain important things like marketing and selling. But the "how to" is never what's missing. What's really missing is the "want to".....the deep, single-minded desire to be a dramatic success.

Once you get that "want to" in place, and it's in you, a place you can now "come from" then the "how to" begins to show up everywhere...like this book by Alastair.

For a small business, the right marketing can launch you. But it has to be right. It has to connect with your prospective customers and clients, and connect in ways that actually begin the sales process.

Becoming passionate and knowledgeable about strong and effective marketing is the first (and most necessary) step to business success. We live in a weakened age....people are looking for handouts, bail-outs, government assistance, and all kinds of "help." However, true and rapid success comes froma mindset of self help, a mindset of self-reliance and and a mindset of business power.

Successful businesses are created.

They don't just "happen" to people who catch a lucky break with a hot product or service. Your marketing is the most important part of that creation because it is the part that reaches out to your customer, takes him by the hand, and walks him through your doors.

Make it something you know and care about. Start with this book.

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It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”

~P.J. O'Rourke

* * * * * *

"Chandler's ten-part success course,Mindshift, is a habit-breaking, overhauling, corner-turning, life-changing gift to yourself, your better self. It is based on a simple premise: when your mind is open it will shift, from problems to opportunities, from How do I get there? to When do I start? In the company of this wise, witty, remarkable man, you will nod your way up the ladder of consciousness, stepping over fear and worry all the way up to the creative force of the god within. Your old story, the person that's too tired, too old, too busy, too poor, too burdened with circumstances, will be left behind on the couch watching heroes on TV, as you head up and out to commit mind, body and spirit to your true calling."

June 10, 2010

"There is no way you can’t have the best business on this planet. No one stops you but you- that's the only possibility."

~Byron Katie

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Circumstance is nothing…passion is everything.

Every once in a while we put a little slogan up in our office that says "Doing it now is more important than doing it right." We don't mean don't do it as well as you can, we just mean if you wait until the timing is perfect, it'll never happen. Just do it now. This time.

And those thoughts come from a book called 100 Ways to Create Wealth written by two formerly bankrupt guys, me and Sam Beckford. Sam had so many businesses go under in his young life. Then it happened. Circumstance lost its meaning.

It actually happened at a grocery store. Sam and his wife had finished shopping and went to pay for their groceries with his debit card and the card didn't clear through. So he tried it again and the card didn't work again, and the cashier offered to try a third time saying, "There must be a problem with the card." Sam said, "Yeah, I know the problem-there's no money in the account."

He was there with his wife, and they had to leave the store, and leave all their groceries to be put back on the shelves. And there was something very painful about reaching a point where he couldn't even feed his family.

"It was the most embarrassing, humiliating thing," Sam said. "And I said, 'This is never going to happen again. I'm sick of being broke. I'm sick of being poor.' I'd been trying to play the odds that there'd still be a little money left in the account. But walking out of that store that day was the turning point for all the business achievement that happened after that. It's the moment I woke up."

Sam now tells that story to a lot of people who are trying to make it as small business owners, and professionals of all kinds. Sometimes they come up to him afterwards at a seminar and say, "You know, I can identify with that grocery store story because it happened to me two weeks ago."

As for lack of wealth, I can relate. I've been there. I've been down and in debt with utterly failed careers and ventures. Probably in worse ways than you. So don't try to push that pain away. Let yourself really feel what you are missing. Because that's when you will be focused enough to say no to that feeling. You can say "no" to feeling that way ever again.

Now you can find a place to take a stand.

This is the power of negative thinking! Be completely negative about what you no longer want. Refuse to let it in. Stand up to it. Draw your line in the stand, step back, and dare it (the old you) to ever cross that line again.

Use a moment like that to be your final resolve to say, "Never again. Never." There's a positive turning point hidden in everything. Even in something that feels that bad.

People, like me, who have recovered from addictions, eventually reach what we call a "bottom." We can't go any lower without dying. But once we've hit bottom we often find new strength to say, "That's it. There's just no way that I'm going to live like this anymore. I don't care what I have to do, I don't care how uncomfortable it is, I don't care what they tell me to do, I'll even go through those 12 steps. I'm doing it, because this is the end of this life."

Wealth has steps, too. Just like addiction recovery. And the steps work. And the first step is to draw a line in the sand.

“Today, like every other day, we wake up emptyand frightened. Don't open the door to the studyand begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.Let the beauty we love be what we do.There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

May 08, 2010

"You have to be taught to hate and fear.It has to be drummed in your dear little ear."~SOUTH PACIFIC

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Do you hate selling yourself?

The great adventure writer Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Everyone lives by selling something." But the sad truth is that only sales people know that they live by selling something. Everyone else is unaware. Unless you count Stevenson.

A mother at home sells the rules of the house to her children. An accountant sells his reports and figures to his boss and clients. Religious leaders sell the attraction of the faith to their followers. A teenager sells his father on the idea of a car.

When you know you live by selling something you can really put life into your day. In fact, you can feel like you've put your whole life into a single day. First thing in the morning you can rise up smiling and getting ready to sell. You know you become masterful when you learn to enjoy the process. The whole process.

Selling makes the world go around. Other people say that "Love makes the world go round," but great sales people know that it's the same thing. Pump enough love into your sales pitch and you will succeed.

As a sales person you get to become a psychologist, a dramatic actor and a business entrepreneur all at once. All in the course of enjoying your day.

Yet, the overt power of the position of sales seems to threaten others. Because you are out there exchanging value for money, right up front with it, no apologies, you threaten others who are more covert in their work. People who hide out from life don't like people who are so up front.

So you get movies like Boiler Room and Glengarry Glen Ross and plays like Death of a Salesman that attempt to denigrate the profession and make free enterprise itself look demeaning. (Ironically, most sales people I know get a big kick out of these movies and plays and laugh at the caricatures in them. Most sales people are not sensitive at all about what they do because they know it's what makes the world go round.)

Today you will see most of the popular culture demeaning the sales process and profession. You see most of society viewing corporations and businesses as evil. Sometimes, when taken to extremes, an entire society will try to wipe out enterprise and sales altogether. Socialist and communist countries that have tried this have found out the hard way that they were killing the human spirit in the process. They were killing ambition and the joy of living when they tried to kill sales. The Soviet Union's prison walls of no-free-enterprise came tumbling down after many years of trying to create a sales-free lifestyle for everyone. It killed the soul of the people. It stopped innovation and adventure. It led to tremendous poverty and addiction.

The human spirit was replaced by vodka on a rainy morning.

China, the largest nation in the world, is also waking up to free market participation. In a wild attempt to cure so many years of propaganda against financial freedom and personal achievement, China has now adopted a new slogan for its people: "MONEY IS A GOOD THING."

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"600 baseball books are published every year and 599 of them are not worth the paper they never should have been printed on. Two Guys Read the Box Scores is the other one. It is splendid."

~George Will

George Will is a U.S. newspaper columnist,journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner. Will is also a news analyst for ABC since the early 1980s and was a founding member on the panel of ABC's This Week on which he still appears weekly. He is the author of numerous bestselling books, including two critically acclaimed bestsellers on baseball, Men at Work and Bunts.

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My new coaching prosperity school opens August 20 and 21 and each school allows for nine coaches to attend...we focus on only one thing: how to get clients and build prosperity by transformative coaching:

Email me if you want to know how to attend or to ask about payment plans to attend...... stephendchandler@cs.com. Or ask anything. Like who some of the rather prosperous grads are.Here's something we learn in the school:

Coaching is about transformation.

Change.

It's not about advice. Or tips. Or chatting with people. It's not just a sympathetic ear, either, that's just a tiny part of it.

Coaching is transformation.

If you are really into it, you will change your client's life. So act accordingly when you "sell" coaching. Most coaches I know sell coaching as if they were selling carpet cleaning...."Here's what it is per hour"...etc.

If you are really into it, you will be there for your client more than their parents were, more than their business partner or even spouse is. Their parents and spouse have agendas. They have something they want back from your client. You don't ……(you've been paid up front, even if you're paid monthly you don't let a client get in debt to you.) So you can truly be the first person in that client's life to ever be there 100% for them. A wholly committed, fearless truth-telling commitment to them who wants nothing more than their success. It's a first for a client to have someone like you in their lives.

Then why do we "sell" coaching as if it were less than that? Why don't we DEMONSTRATE that full commitment ahead of time? When a prospective client has a website or an ebook why do we sometimes not even read it? (Because we've locked ourselves into spamalot and hint-hint flirtatious selling! ...a carpet cleaner's approach to selling coaching.)

Let your prospects know what coaching with you would be like by having your intake conversations be long, extremely real and truthful… extremely lengthy!...... It is the joy of creating. This one INTAKE conversation is wading into your client's life, languishing in it, rolling in it, embracing it, living it.

…….because you are selling coaching, you don't want to mince words or do the dance of money-fear wherein you are flattering them, chatting them up and acting in ways that disgust you when the day is done.

Instead, be willing to listen deeply and then be the FIRST PERSON in their lives in many a year to tell them the truth. Be real and tell the truth about how you REALLY see their problems. Coaching is truth-telling.

Notice how fearless and direct Steve Hardison is with everyone. That truthfulness.

April 14, 2010

"What gets me upset with the newer players is their lack of intensity. They tend to go through the motions a little bit. They don't understand that you've got to practice the way you play."

~Al Kaline

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The year was 1955 and it was springtime in Birmingham, Michigan, a great time and place to be alive if you were 11 years old as we were.

Each morning I read my favorite sportswriter Joe Falls as he reported on developments for the Tigers' spring training in Florida. I was wistful, dreamy and lazy.

That would soon change.

Because that was the year I met another 11-year-old who would become my lifelong friend and who would immediately change my life for the better. He was tall and wiry and he had red hair and freckles and looked like he walked right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

This person would later become the author, playwright, advertising creative director, world traveler, horse racing aficionado, country folk singer Terrence N. Hill, but back then he was just Terry.

Before I met him I had been a young baseball fan in a rather relaxed, distant way. I read the sports pages and listened to games on the radio. In my cocoon of passivity. But Terry is not a passive person. Neither does he enjoy passivity in others. (Try vacationing with him. You'll need to take a vacation after the vacation to recover.)

Terry engages life full-out. So it wasn't long before he had me following baseball at deeper levels than most boys ever do. And he also convinced me to try out for Little League and play the game, too.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A true friend is someone who will make us do what we can."

That was Terry.

About a year after befriending him I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom with baseball cards neatly aligned next to a stenographer's notebook as I rolled dice to see what the next player would do at bat. I'd then record the result on the pad, and after awhile there were huge stacks of pads piled high with statistics. Terry and I had invented a game, a precursor to today's fantasy leagues, we simply called "Leagues."

Like baseball-addicted mad scientists we'd play, sometimes ten hours straight, long into the night, and then rush to each other's houses the next day to report the results. We owned and memorized every baseball card of every player in major league baseball and our knowledge of the sport's trivia would make Bill James (later to become baseball's greatest statistician) look woefully uninformed.

To speed up our calculating of batting averages we taught ourselves to use an abacus. We later replaced that with a slide rule, marvelous for quickly calculating averages and ERAs.

And out in the yard we also played. Hours on end! We cut golf balls open to get at the hard, bouncy little ball in the middle and then used that ball to throw off various walls and garage doors. We also played catch, and fungo, and soon were playing on the same team, the Wildcats, in Little League. Terry was our shortstop and I played third base. We were champions. Terry was the sparkplug.

We were so into baseball that the real world had become a mere alternative universe. We did follow real sports, but they were never quite as exciting as the leagues we ourselves created and wrote about.

Back then, living outside Detroit, it was safe for two boys to take a bus to Briggs Stadium downtown to watch our Tiger heroes, Ray Boone (who led the league in runs batted in in 1955), Al Kaline who was the league's best hitter (.340) and Harvey Kuenn who captained the team and led the league in doubles. Our Tigers scored more runs than any team in the American League although the Yankees, (with Mickey Mantle and his unbeatable rat pack), ran away with the pennant.

That was a long time ago, though, no? And, so, here we are 54 years later. What's changed? Almost nothing! So we wrote this book about baseball.

This was a year Dickens would have liked because Terry and I followed the best of teams and the worst of teams. Terry, who has long been a New Yorker, got to follow his Yankees all the way to the World Championship. (Sorry for spoiling the ending.)

I, myself, followed my own hometown Arizona Diamondbacks.

Dysfunction in uniform.

As a part of this book's research we decided to spend a week together in New York, going to games and visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Terry also spent a weekend in Phoenix to see my team play. The wonderful thing about that was that we had as much fun this time around as we used to have when we both lived on Buckingham Road in 1955, just a few houses apart from each other.

There is no real rhyme or reason to this book. No attempt to chronicle a season comprehensively. It's really about two fans having fun following baseball and writing to each other about it.

Terry did a better job telling the story of the Yankees season, and I'm glad he did, because everybody loves a winner. (Damn Yankees!) I, on the other hand, felt I had an obligation to the readers not to make them depressed ... so I tried to write as little about the Diamondbacks as I could.

This is our fourth book together. We started on a whim. We were initially trying to get into the Guinness World Records book as the first people to ever read Moby Dick all the way through. We decided to make our correspondence about that reading experience into a book, and to our surprise a lot of people really enjoyed it, and are still buying copies today.

So we fantasized that we were now pressured to write more books together. Terry had been mailing me his favorite obituaries for decades so we hit upon Two Guys Read the Obituaries as a fun sequel. To our fresh surprise, people bought that one, too. Not in Harry Potter numbers, but enough books were sold to forge ahead with our third book, Two Guys Read Jane Austen.

That one sold more copies than the first two combined! Other authors were now becoming envious. It is said that at one publishing convention a long line of writers paraded outside the convention hall carrying signs that said: "Break up the Two Guys!"

But we would not stop writing.

So then we became lit up by the work of Jane Austen, and the challenge of writing about her. One of Jane's books that we wrote about was Mansfield Park, the dust jacket of which describes Jane's mission as an author. It says it was her mission to "...express her faith in a social order that combats chaos through civil grace, decency and wit."

That's baseball's mission, too. In these chaotic times, there is always baseball. It is just a game. But it can restore us to sanity.

We talk in this book a lot about the great baseball player Ichiro. Yes he goes by one name and this book explains why. Although there's another explanation, too. He is as masterful at his art as other one-name people like Picasso or Sting or Elvis are at theirs.

So I'm going to finish this by telling you something Ichiro said once. And I hope I can get this in because sometimes Terry likes to edit my writing out when I go too far in the direction of my passion for personal growth and the psychology of achievement.

Once, upon first facing Red Sox pitcher and countryman Daisuke Matsuzaka, Ichiro said, "I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul. I plan to face him with the zeal of a challenger."

Boy do I ever love that quote. The fire in my soul. The zeal of a challenger. I love his quote almost as much as I love baseball itself. And I have Terry to thank for that.

So onward into this season. I hope you feel our love of baseball in TWO GUYS READ THE BOX SCORES.

***************************

If you are a coach and/or speaker, and we have a lot of readers here who are, and you would like to talk to me about being my apprentice for a year, please email me. I have an opening in May that goes from May 15, 2010 to May 15, 2011.

If you would like to learn my trade, work behind the scenes with me, take possession of all my material to present as you will, be taught and coached by me for a full year, learn how to build a very lucrative coaching practice, then email me, hit reply, and tell me about you. Also tell me your level of commitment to success as a coach.

This apprenticeship requires a significant financial commitment from you, so please do not consider this position unless you are willing to make that commitment fearlessly, and take responsibility for having the investment pay.

You will also pay for travel and any expenses you incur coming to my events. You can choose as many or as few of my training events to attend as you like. You will receive free full attendance at the Financially Fearless Money Mastermind I'm doing with Michael Neill ($10,000) and full participation in the coaching school I am putting on that begins in August ($9,000) and any other events and/or groups (some in the planning stage) all covered by your apprenticeship fee.

You'll receive weekly 30 minute coaching sessions throughout the year by phone, and a minimum of 20 hours of one-on-one in-person sessions with me.

You'll learn all my training programs and receive all the background materials from my past 20 years of successful coaching and business and leadership training.

This position always fills quickly. I never carry more than two apprentices at a given time, and if your apprenticeship overlaps with another coach's you will enjoy learning from that coach as well.

Because this program requires that I give so much of my time and my work to you, I always make certain I choose my apprentice very carefully so that it is someone I know I will enjoy working with and someone I know will use this apprenticeship to succeed way beyond past benchmarks. If you and I talk and if either one of us can't picture how real success would happen, we will not be working together. My commitment is very large to you.

January 18, 2010

"There will come a time when you believe that everything is finished. That will be the beginning."~Louis L'Amour

When I was in the army years ago we took training in bayonet combat, and they told us that there were two kinds of soldiers in combat, the quick and the dead.

When I coach clients today in my business coaching and life coaching jobs, I have two kinds of clients. The QUICK: those who are interested in effecting a quickening in the success curves.

And the DEAD: those who repeat the past day after day.

I, myself have been both in my life. And I can assure you that quick is better.

Better than this form of dead: buried alive. In unfinished tasks and obligations.

But any of us can be either one. That's the fundamental choice at the heart of everything. You've got to get to the heart of it first.

**********************

I'm starting a wealth mastermind that will focus on one thing, money. How to make it. How not to be afraid of it. How to create a quickening. How to have a fully prosperous life. Because how much life is there? Do you know? (Anyone.)

This group will focus on the law of creation, not the law of attraction. I love the law of attraction but it's only a paper moon.

The law of creation says if you want to make more money figure out better ways to serve. And better ways to ask.

Better ways to ask! A mastermind in asking and serving.

Byron Katie says, "You could have anything in life you wanted if you were willing to ask 1,000 people for it."

But we stop asking.

Sometimes we don't ask big enough. Or, we ask only once.

No one ever holds us accountable for how much productive asking we do. (This group will change that.....email me at SChandler@cox.net for me to send you more info on how to join, and it will be a small group, only nine people plus me, starting February 16, we sit around a table monthly...we do other cool things together...there is a quickening......email me.)

We don't ask for money because we fear rejection. As if there were such a thing! Rejection is a feeling we produce by believing certain erroneous thoughts. It doesn't exist in reality. (People are stopped from becoming prosperous by something that doesn't even exist. The universe has a wicked sense of humor.)

I love going to Vancouver to work with my partner Sam Beckford helping people grow their wealth through the law of creation.

Places like Vancouver always feel so lovely, rain-drenched, dappled in shades of green you never see in Arizona. So my travel there is good. It refreshes. But we also don't want to miss Ralph Waldo Emerson's point about how much we shape our traveled-to beauties by our inner life and perception. Rain can be overdone. It can get dreary. So many songs tell you. Here's that rainy day.

I forget and take for granted the magnificent light in Arizona. Ever see the Native Americans do a sand-painting?

Glorious.

They take a fistful of rust-colored sand and let a stream come out on top of an ivory mandala of sand and soon every shade of light in the world is being eaten and reflected by the sand.

Wealth is everywhere.

Emerson said, "To the dull mind, all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world sparkles with light."

The illumined mind has shifted to the light.

Once many years ago when I was depressed about not making enough money in my business I talked to my friend and mentor Steve Hardison. Hardison said, "To shift your mind you might want to simply shift your body into the light, literally."

He recommended I get out of Wayne's World (my nickname for the office I had at that time in my garage) and into the outdoors, so I could experience more light. More light on the outside, more light on the inside.

So I reluctantly followed his advice, and started doing my work out on the back patio in the sun and it shifted! My mood picked up and I started having the conversations that generated new business.

Wealth is everywhere.

So let's travel to India to follow this thought through. Not literally, but through the Indian poet Tagore who said, "Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."

My mastermind will put nine people plus me in the light. There is no rejection in the light. There is only faith.

September 23, 2009

Brian Whetten was an apprentice of mine a couple years ago and now look at him. He is a huge success. And one of his many specialties is the course he teaches in how to do selling by Giving.

We have a funny reluctance to sell or be sold. We associate it with all kinds of nervous negative things. Many of us, who have perfectly wonderful services to offer, fail to sell them because of this superstition that selling is somehow a manipulation.

Brian's work has found a way around all that. He has created a system for sales that makes it really fun and easy to communicate with people and let them experience the value of your service. Before you know it, they are selling you on the idea of working together.

Like all great coaches, Brian is a devoted student. When he applied to be my apprentice I remember that the written portion of his application was such a feast for the eyes! His deep learnings at the University of Santa Monica and various other places (Brian is a PhD) were spelled out in his application. He then sent me a stunning book manuscript. He was a writer, too. The other applications did not stand up to his and those were the days when I worked with just one apprentice at a time. Today I work with three, and find even more value gets delivered that way because the three learn from each other, too.

From the first day of our apprenticeship, Brian was amazing. He would attend a seminar of mine, and then meet with me for three hours afterward taking pages and pages of notes. During our year together I taught him everything I knew. I gave him the rights to all my content (as all apprentices receive) to deliver and teach as his own.

Brian stepped up! His business grew faster than my own! My dream of passing my work on to younger generations of coaches and seminar leaders was being realized faster than I ever imagined. This is why I created the apprentice program to begin with. To pass things on. I wanted to make the financial commitment steep (it's $50,000 up front.) So that I'd only get extremely committed people. But I also knew that that fee was not steep when you factor in the use of all my 20 years of content.

Brian now has an extremely prosperous coaching and training practice. He has two really good unpublished books that he is shopping to publishers. And his "selling by giving" course is changing the whole playing field of sales. He's teaching other coaches, consultants, therapists and practioners of all kinds to enjoy "selling" as much as they enjoy healing people. They now see it as the same thing.

"Steve Chandler has created a whole new genre of writing with his newest book The Woman Who Attracted Money - it's like a self-help mystery that you can't put down (kept me up til' 2am) and can't help but grow from. The murder mystery gets solved as Steve masterfully unmasks and demonstrates what transformational coaching is. If you are a coach, considering becoming a coach, or wondering what coaching is, this book is a MUST READ!"

~Julie Blake

Of course club fearless members get a copy of The Woman Who Attracted Money mailed to them this week just for being in the club.

So if you want a life focused on courage and creativity, join the club.